Accused Bomber’s Defense Team Gets Renowned Death Penalty Lawyer
(Apr 30, 2013) Judy Clarke’s roster of former clients includes Tucson shooter Jared Loughner and unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Now, she can add suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as she is the newest member of his defense team.Read more here
Opinion, Miami Herald: Stop death penalty bill, Gov. Scott
(Apr 29, 2013) House Bill 7083, the “Timely Justice Act,” is an attempt to stop frivolous appeals, something everyone can agree on. Sponsored by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Shalimar, and Sen. Joe Negron, R-Palm City, the legislation requires the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days after a state Supreme Court review, with the execution taking place within 180 days after that. It does away with certain types of defenses in death penalty cases. Read more
Death sentence a possibility
(Apr 27, 2013) Two Wilmington men face a possible death sentence after a Superior Court judge ruled Friday that there was enough evidence to hold Reuel Ray and Tyare Lee without bail in the May 2012 murder of Craig Melancon, 21, of New Orleans. Read more here
Death penalty sought in central Pa. slaying
(Apr 27, 2013) Prosecutors in central Pennsylvania say they plan to seek the death penalty against a man accused of having killed his estranged wife’s new boyfriend last year. Read more here
Arkansas Death Row Inmates Claim New Execution Law Is Unconsitutional
(Apr 26, 2013) Arkansas’ just-approved execution law is as badly flawed as the version it replaced, according to a lawsuit filed Friday that argues the new law is unconstitutional and puts inmates at risk for an agonizing death. Read more here
Man gets death sentence for old lady’s murder
(Apr 25, 2013) A South Florida man was sentenced to death Thursday for fatally stabbing an elderly woman in her Little Havana apartment. A Miami-Dade judge followed a jury’s 7-5 recommendation in sentencing 40-year-old Victor Guzman. Read more here
Bill to repeal Delaware’s death penalty stalls in House committee after narrow Senate passage
(Apr 24, 2013) A bill to repeal Delaware’s death penalty stalled in a House committee Wednesday after barely clearing the Senate last month. Members of the Judiciary Committee took no action on the measure after it appeared it would fail to win passage. Read more here
3 murder charges against Philadelphia abortion doc tossed; he faces death penalty on 4 others
(Apr 23, 2013) Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, still faces the death penalty if convicted on four remaining counts of first-degree murder involving babies allegedly killed with scissors after being born alive. Read more here
Conn. Supreme Court takes up death penalty repeal
(Apr 23, 2013) Connecticut’s repeal of the death penalty for future murders last year violates the constitutional rights of the 11 men on the state’s death row who still face execution, a public defender told the state Supreme Court on Tuesday. Read more here
Mass. lawmakers shelve death penalty bill
(Apr 23, 2013) State lawmakers debated but ultimately shelved a proposal to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts on Tuesday, after the deadly Boston Marathon bombings and violent manhunt led some legislators to call for bringing back capital punishment in some cases. Read more here
Boston bombing suspect could face death penalty
(Apr 20, 2013) Tsarnaev is likely to be charged under federal law, because the federal government has more legal and investigative resources and Massachusetts does not have a state death penalty statute. Read more here
After losing supply of lethal injection drug, Arkansas turns to drug never used in executions
(Apr 19, 2013) The state Department of Correction told The Associated Press this week that it decided to use phenobarbital after attorneys for several death row inmates mentioned in a lawsuit that it might be an available drug. Phenobarbital, which is used to treat seizures, has never been used in a U.S. execution, and critics contend that a drug that’s untested in lethal injections could lead to inhumane deaths for condemned prisoners. Read more here
Ohio death penalty review committee meets again
(Apr 18, 2013) A state Supreme Court task force analyzing the effectiveness of Ohio’s capital punishment law planned another meeting Thursday as part of its multiyear review. Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has convened the task force while making it clear it won’t debate whether the state should have the death penalty. Read more here
Opinion, George Will: Why the death penalty should be abolished
(Apr 17, 2013) From Tom Paine’s “Common Sense” to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” American history is replete with examples of printed words accelerating social justice. Still, from Mathew Brady’s 1862 photo exhibit of “The Dead of Antietam” to the televised fire hoses and police dogs in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 to the cameras that brought Vietnam into American living rooms, graphic journalism has exercised unique power to open minds and hence shape history. Read more here
Lawyers say Arkansas plans to use untried drug to execute death row inmates
(Apr 16, 2013) The U.S. state of Arkansas plans to put prisoners to death with a drug that apparently hasn’t been used in a U.S. execution, and lawyers for condemned inmates warn that it could take longer for someone to die from it than from other lethal injection drugs. Read more here
Fort Hood hearing may hold key to death penalty for shooter
(Apr 16, 2013) Accused Fort Hood gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, was due in court Tuesday for a hearing that could be key in determining whether he will face the death penalty for the murders of 13 people during a shooting rampage at the military post in November 2009. Read more here
Louisiana Prosecutors to seek death penalty in child’s death
(Apr 13, 2013) The Lafayette Parish District Attorney’s Office says it will seek the death penalty for Landon C. Broussard, who was charged with first-degree murder in the November beating death of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son. Read more here
House panel moves forward death penalty bill
(Apr 16, 2013) A bill that would speed up the death penalty in Florida cleared a House panel Tuesday after a man told lawmakers of his family’s 32-year wait for his sister’s killer to be put to death. Read more here
California’s dormant death penalty system faces another legal test
(Apr 14, 2013) Now more than seven years since the last execution in California, the state this week will try again to revive its dormant death penalty system in an appeals court considering the latest legal tangle over San Quentin’s lethal injection procedures. Read more here
Oklahoma court to hear death row inmate’s appeal
(Apr 13, 2013) It’s been 20 years since the decomposing bodies of a woman and her four children were discovered inside the family’s Oklahoma City home. Read more here
5 Surprising Facts About the Death Penalty Worldwide
(Apr 12, 2013) Amnesty International released their 2012 annual report on capital punishment this week, highlighting information on the differing ways countries handle execution around the world. Read more here
Death penalty trial to begin for man accused of killing College Park teens
(Apr 9, 2013) A man facing the death penalty for allegedly killing teen cousins will get to defend himself in court beginning on Wednesday. Read more here
US soldier faces death penalty for fighting with al-Qaeda in Syria
(Apr 9, 2013) Harroun faced the charges of working with Nusra and firing rocket propelled grenades while in Syria at a court in Virginia. The maximum penalty if found guilty is death, and the minimum is life imprisonment. Read more here
Death penalty ‘becoming thing of the past’, says Amnesty
(Apr 9, 2013) The trend toward abolishing the death penalty continues, despite some countries resuming executions in 2012, Amnesty International says. Read more here
After death-penalty repeal, O’Malley faces decision on condemned inmates
(Apr 7, 2013) With last month’s vote to repeal the death penalty, Maryland lawmakers handed Gov. Martin O’Malley a long-sought legislative victory — and a question that he has refused to answer: What is he going to do about the five prisoners on death row? Read more here
Death Penalty Speed Up
(Apr 6, 2013) Legislation to speed up executions is now speeding through the Florida Legislature. Gaetz says the process needs to move faster. The bill would streamline the appeals process and force judges to make quicker decisions. Read more here
Death row inmate loses appeal in 1994 slaying of 3 Popeyes employees in Gadsden
(Apr 4, 2013) Nearly two decades after three employees were gunned down at a fast-food restaurant, an Alabama death row inmate has lost another appeal in his fight to overturn his capital murder conviction. Read more here
Opinion, Seattle Times: Why Washington should end the death penalty: 1,050 exonerated defendants
(Apr 4, 2013) A comprehensive effort by the new National Registry on Exonerations is a stark reminder that mistakes happen here too. By their count, 26 people were exonerated in Washington state between 1989 and 2012. Clark County is among the top 10 counties in the country for exonerations per-capita. Read more here
DA seeks death penalty in eastern Pa. shootout
(Apr 4, 2013) A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty against an Allentown man charged with taking part in a shootout at an eastern Pennsylvania social club that killed a woman and injured five other people. Read more here
Killer who lured victims via Craigslist gets death penalty
(Apr 4, 2013) An Ohio street-preacher who lured his murder victims with bogus Craigslist job offers has been sentenced to death by an Akron judge, following the jury’s recommendation. Read more here
Judge delays retrial in Iowa death penalty case
(Apr 3, 2013) A judge has delayed an upcoming death penalty retrial for an Iowa woman charged in five 1993 drug-related slayings while prosecutors appeal rulings limiting the evidence they can present. Read more here
Fla. high court denies death row appeal
(Apr 2, 2013) A man on death row for kidnapping and murdering a Pinellas County girl 33 years ago lost his latest appeal on Tuesday. The Florida Supreme Court denied Larry Eugene Mann’s request for post-conviction relief. Read more here
US court upholds death penalty for Oklahoma man
(Apr 1, 2013) A federal appeals court has upheld the death penalty of a 38-year-old Ponca City man convicted of first-degree murder for the June 1999 shooting death of a 19-year-old woman. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down the decision Monday in the case of Clayton Darrell Lockett. Lockett was convicted of killing Stephanie Nieman, who was shot to death and buried in a shallow grave near Tonkawa. Read more here
4-time killer can appeal death penalty
(Mar 29, 2013) A federal judge in South Bend said convicted local murderer Joseph Corcoran can appeal his death sentence again to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Read more here
Vigil held in opposition to SD death penalty
(Mar 29, 2013) About 30 people gathered outside the state penitentiary in northern Sioux Falls Friday in support of a death penalty-free South Dakota. The group met for about an hour for a vigil, mostly through prayer and reflection, not far from where two men, Donald Moeller and Eric Robert, were put to death last October by lethal injection. Read more here
SAVED FROM DEATH ROW: Exonerees speak in Flagler
(Mar 27, 2013) Seth Penalver spent 18 years in prison for murder. He was sentenced to death. Just three months ago, he was exonerated. Evidence emerged in his case proving he didn’t commit the crime he was imprisoned for. Read more here
KS Rep’s death penalty repeal effort stalled for now
(Mar 25, 2013) The House gave initial approval Monday to two bills regarding the death penalty — but neither was the one Rep. Steven Becker, R-Buhler, ultimately wants to see come up for a vote. Becker introduced a bill in early March that would banish capital punishment from Kansas, replacing it with a sentence of life in prison without parole. With the session winding down, Becker said Monday his bill will be staying in the House Federal and State Committee until next year. Read more here
Bill seeks audit of death penalty costs
(Mar 25, 2013) Nevada lawmakers are trying again to study the costs of the death penalty. AB444 was introduced Monday. It requires the legislative auditor to report on the costs of prosecuting capital cases, as compared with non-death penalty cases. Read more here
Death Penalty Strikes Out Again in Puerto Rico
(Mar 25, 2013) On Saturday, a lone juror in a criminal case before the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico was all that stood between the Alexis Candelario Santana and the death penalty. The Federal Prosecutors wanted to get a death penalty conviction for a man responsible for more murders than Jeffrey Dahmer had victims and the mastermind behind the “Tombola massacre” that shocked Puerto Rico in 2009. Read more here
Death penalty for man convicted in Kingman AZ murder
(Mar 25, 2013) An Arizona man convicted in the 2009 killing of his ex-girlfriend’s daughter has been given the death penalty. Jurors in Mohave County Superior Court deliberated about four hours Monday in the penalty phase of Darrell Bryant Ketchner’s trial. Read more here
Conn. Supreme Court taking up death penalty repeal
(Mar 25, 2013) The Connecticut Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments next month on whether the state’s repeal of the death penalty for future crimes violates the constitutional rights of the 11 men already on death row. Read more here
Opinion, Sun Sentinel: Death penalty in Florida a study in inefficiency
(Mar 18, 2013) The Legislative proposal for a constitutional amendment to transfer from the Supreme Court to itself the authority to establish procedures relating to post-conviction or collateral review of capital cases is a tacit admission that capital punishment in Florida is ineffective and inefficient. Since the last six executions in Florida involved inmates who had lingered on death row in excess of 25 years, one must agree capital punishment is inefficient. The fact that we have executed only 7 percent of those sent to death row since capital punishment was reinstated makes it foolish to suggest that capital punishment is a deterrent. Read more here
Death Penalty Slowly Falls, But Not In Oklahoma
(Mar 16, 2013) The number of executions across the nation is falling, and more states are abolishing the death penalty altogether. Oklahoma apparently won’t be joining that list any time soon. The Death Penalty Information Center says executions have fallen by more than half in the past 15 years and Maryland could soon become the 18th state to end executions. Oklahoma’s executions fell from 18 in 2001 to six last year. State Sen. Constance Johnson of Oklahoma City proposed a bill to study the death penalty’s costs and impact on crime. Read more here
FL Law doesn’t require unanimous jury for death sentence
(Mar 16, 2013) In Florida, defendants must be found guilty by a unanimous vote, whether they steal a car or kill. But when it comes to recommending the ultimate punishment, a simple majority, 7-5, suffices. This is the only state in America that allows such split juries to recommend death. And it matters. In 2012, almost two-thirds of the defendants sent to Florida’s death row were ushered there even after some of the jurors believed they should be spared. Read more here
Md. Assembly votes to repeal death penalty
(Mar 15, 2013) The Maryland legislature voted Friday to abolish the death penalty, which would make the state the sixth in as many years to end capital punishment and add to a canon of liberal policies recently embraced by state leaders. The 82 to 56 vote in the House of Delegates, which followed two hours of debate, reflected a growing unease among lawmakers in Maryland and across the country that the risk of putting an innocent person to death remains too great with the death penalty in place. Read more here
Ore High Court Eyes Death-Row Inmate’s Push to Die
(Mar 14, 2013) A power struggle between a death-row inmate who wants to be executed and a governor who refuses to let it happen reached Oregon’s highest court Thursday as lawyers sparred over the governor’s authority to delay criminal sentences. The lawyer for a man convicted of two murders argued that Gov. John Kitzhaber lacks authority to delay Gary Haugen’s execution without the inmate’s consent. Read more here
Bill would abolish death penalty in Nebraska
(Mar 14, 2013) Nebraska would become the 18th state in the United States to abolish the death penalty under a bill introduced by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha.
The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee heard testimony March 13 on LB 543.
The bill would get rid of the death penalty in the state and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Nebraska has executed three people since 1976 when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the resumption of executions after a two-year moratorium. There are currently 11 inmates on death row in the state.
Read more here
Arizona Death Row Inmate Debra Milke’s Conviction Overturned
(Mar 14, 2013) An Arizona mother who was sentenced to death in the killing of her 4-year-old son has had her conviction thrown out today after she spent 22 years on death row. A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Debra Jean Milke’s murder conviction would not stand after they determined that a detective who testified against her in her trial had an undisclosed history of misconduct. Read more here
Bill seeks to put NC death penalty back on track
(Mar 13, 2013) Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-New Hanover, has filed a bill he said will end North Carolina’s de facto moratorium on the death penalty. Among other measures, it would wipe away the last vestiges of the Racial Justice Act, a measure that allows death row inmates to challenge their sentences based on statistical evidence. Read more here
Sen. Joyce Elliott Proposes End to Arkansas’ Death Penalty
(Mar 11, 2013) An Arkansas lawmaker has filed a bill to end the death penalty in the state. The bill by Democratic Sen. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock comes weeks after Gov. Mike Beebe said he’d sign such a measure if passed by the Legislature. Read more here
Va.’s death row population down to 8
(Mar 9, 2013) Virginia’s death row population has dwindled to eight from a peak of 57 in 1995, and it’s not just because of the state’s efficiency in carrying out capital punishment. A couple of death sentences have been erased recently — one because of the inmate’s mental health issues, another because a star witness changed his story and prosecutors withheld key evidence. Another inmate’s innocence claim based on recanted testimony was revived last year by an appellate court and is in a judge’s hands. Read more here
House committee approves death penalty repeal
(Feb 8, 2013) Gov. Martin O’Malley’s bill to repeal the death penalty is one step closer to passage after a House committee voted Friday to approve it. The bill — already passed by the Senate — goes now to the full House of Delegates. The House Judiciary Committee’s 14-8 vote to approve the bill came after Republicans offered more than a half-dozen amendments seeking to allow the death penalty for some crimes, including mass murder. One after another, they were voted down by the same margin as on the bill itself. Read more here
Bill to abolish death penalty gets hearing
(Mar 6, 2013) Every year for the past five years, Rep. Reuven Carlyle has sponsored a bill that would eliminate Washington’s death penalty. And every year the bill went nowhere. But this year, the Seattle Democrat’s bill managed to get a public hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. Read more here
Maryland Senate votes to repeal state’s death penalty
(Mar 6, 2013) Maryland’s Senate voted on Wednesday to repeal the state’s death penalty, putting it on a path to becoming the 18th state to abolish executions. The Senate voted 27 to 20 to repeal the law, according to a legislative spokesperson. The bill next goes to the state House of Delegates, where supporters believe they have enough votes for it to pass. Read more here
Florida House looks to speed up death penalty
(Mar 5, 2013) With more than 400 people on Florida’s Death Row, a House subcommittee Tuesday approved a proposed constitutional amendment that is part of a plan to try to reduce delays in carrying out the death penalty. The proposed constitutional amendment would shift power from the courts system to lawmakers to set rules about what are known as “post-conviction” appeals in death-penalty cases. Read more here
Oregon death penalty ‘indefensible,’ says man who last carried it out
(Feb 26, 2013) The man who oversaw Oregon’s last two executions at the Oregon State Penitentiary said the death penalty fails to deter crime, does not make the public any safer and forces prison officials into an untenable position. Read more here
Oregon lawmakers to consider death penalty repeal
(Feb 25, 2013) Oregon’s complicated relationship with capital punishment takes center stage this week as a House committee takes up Gov. John Kitzhaber’s plea for a public vote on repealing the death penalty. On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee will hear public testimony on a measure that would ask voters in 2014 whether to insert 10 words in the state constitution: “A sentence of death shall not be imposed or executed.” The proposal doesn’t seem likely to go very far, especially after voters in California rejected a similar measure last year. Read more here
Execution of murderer raises new questions about the death penalty in Florida
The execution of Paul Augustus Howell scheduled for Tuesday has put Florida’s death penalty process under the microscope again. Howell, 42, was convicted in 1992 of the pipe-bomb killing of Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jimmy Fulford in Jefferson County, east of Tallahassee. If he dies by lethal injection as scheduled, his attorneys say, he will be the first Florida inmate to die without his case having been reviewed in federal court under a habeas corpus appeal. Read more here
Sen. Chambers wants to change Nebraska’s death penalty law
(Feb 22, 2013) Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha — arguably the Legislature’s most ardent death-penalty opponent — wants to change the way Nebraska decides whether to execute someone. Under state law, someone convicted of murder faces what amounts to a second trial, where jurors decide whether there are aggravating factors surrounding the crime. If they find there are, a three-judge panel then decides whether the death penalty is warranted. Read more here
Baldwin (Georgia) DA: Death-Penalty Process is ‘Mind-Boggling’
(Feb 22, 2013) Capital punishment is reserved for “the worst of the worst,” said the district attorney who says he has the highest number of death penalty convictions in Georgia. Fred Bright is the District Attorney for the Ocmulgee District, which includes Baldwin, Hancock, Jones, Putnam and Wilkinson counties. Read more here
Georgia Death Penalty Under Renewed Scrutiny After 11th-Hour Stay
(Feb 20, 2013) A Georgia inmate’s execution was halted Tuesday night with less than an hour to go. Prison officials had already given Warren Lee Hill one of the drugs when a federal appeals court stepped in. Hill has an IQ of 70 and his attorneys have long claimed that he’s mentally impaired. His case is now raising questions about Georgia’s law, which makes it difficult for defendants to prove they should be exempt from execution. Read more here
Opinion, Michigan Daily: Death penalty’s real cost
(Feb 19, 2013) When someone says the death penalty is more expensive than a life without parole, they seem wrong. However, they’re in fact telling the truth. The death penalty is millions of federal and state tax dollars more expensive than a life in prison without parole. In California it costs an estimated $308 million per execution. While this is a morally charged issue, at that price do we really care what crime the defendant committed? Read more here
Opinion, Helena Independent Record: Death penalty fails victims’ families
(Feb 17, 2013) Losing Donna in such an appalling way was devastating to me and my family. Our grief was only compounded by the senselessness of the act, the complete innocence of my daughter, and the lack of concern or remorse demonstrated by the perpetrators. Donna’s murder shocked and hurt not just my family, but our entire community. Read more here
Opinion, Arizona Central: Arizona can be next state to reject the death penalty
(Feb 15, 2013) Hello, Arizona. In 2012, our centennial year, did you feel better, knowing that we executed six death-row prisoners? Certainly these people committed terrible crimes, but there is no real closure with execution, only an emptiness that can never replace a loved one. The death penalty is clearly not a deterrent to capital crime because people still commit serious crimes, knowing that they could be put to death. Read more here
Prosecutors push changes to Ohio death penalty law
(Feb 14, 2013) Lawyers representing death penalty clients would have to extensively document their time and track their reasons for calling or not calling particular witnesses, under prosecutor-backed proposals being heard Thursday by a committee reviewing Ohio’s death penalty law. Opinion, Denver Post: Death penalty must be repealed, says Tim Masters
(Feb 13, 2013) When I was 15 years old, a woman named Peggy Hettrick was brutally murdered and mutilated. Years later, I was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder. I served 10 years of my sentence before I was proven innocent by DNA, and fully exonerated three years later. I am living proof that our criminal justice system makes terrible mistakes. Read more here
Ex-Virginia executioner becomes opponent of death penalty
(Feb 10, 2013) Jerry Givens executed 62 people. His routine and conviction never wavered. He’d shave the person’s head, lay his hand on the bald pate and ask for God’s forgiveness for the condemned. Then, he would strap the person into Virginia’s electric chair. As Virginia executed its 110th person in the modern era last month, Givens prayed for the man, but also for an end to the death penalty. Since leaving his job in 1999, Givens has become one of the state’s most visible — and unlikely — opponents of capital punishment. Read more here
Duncan case offers unique glimpse into death penalty law – and lawyers who fight it
(Feb 10 2013) Joseph Duncan’s lawyers are trying to prove that Duncan is so clouded by delusional religious thinking, possibly from a brain defect, that he wasn’t competent to give up his right to appeal a federal jury’s death sentence. Read more here
Opinion, Tampa Bay Times: First, review flawed death row system
(Feb 6, 2013) Before state Rep. Matt Gaetz pushes ahead with efforts to speed death row prisoners to their execution date, he should demand a review of why Florida’s capital punishment system is so prolific and mistake prone. The state holds the dubious distinction of being first in the nation in the number of new death sentences imposed and the number of death sentences overturned, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. Read more here
Opinion, Wichita Eagle: Costly death penalty isn’t protecting Kansans
(Feb 6, 2013) Having spent my entire life without my dad, I was angry and had wanted his killers executed. But over time, after I saw how the death penalty system actually works, my feelings on the issue changed. Read more here
Death-penalty ruling goes to Wa. Supreme Court
(Feb 5, 2013) The state Supreme Court has been asked to review last week’s ruling by a King County Superior Court judge that bars prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against a man and woman accused of killing a family of six on Christmas Eve 2007. Read more here
Opinion, New York Times: A Death Penalty Case in Puerto Rico
(Feb 4, 2013) Puerto Rico abolished the death penalty in 1929 and, a generation later, made it unconstitutional. The island’s Bill of Rights expressly decrees that “the death penalty shall not exist” there. But as a commonwealth of the United States, the island is subject to federal law, including the death penalty for many federal crimes. Read more here
Effort launched to ban death penalty in Montana
(Feb 4, 2013) Four Montana legislators spearheading a bipartisan effort to replace the death penalty with life in prison say they have a good chance of success this session. Read more here
New drug allows Kentucky to continue death penalty
(Feb 2, 2013) A judge stopped all executions in 2010 because of legal challenges brought up from inmates. The inmates wanted the execution method to use one or two drugs, rather than three. Read more here
Opinion, Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Death penalty is on its way out
(Feb 2, 2013) The death penalty is actually on the decline in America. And that’s as it should be. The imposition of the death penalty is rife with corruption, incompetence, race and class bias, and human error. Often, the innocent are killed. Read more here
Louisiana Supreme Court reinstates death sentence in Jefferson Parish La. murder case
(Feb 2, 2013) Justices reversed retired New Orleans Judge Jerome Winsberg’s decision to lift the death sentence because the prosecutor in the case, Ronald Bodenheimer, represented the victim’s family in a civil lawsuit to get the life insurance before his involvement with the criminal case had ended. Read more here
Ohio’s Newest Supreme Court Judge: Death Penalty ‘Inherently Cruel and Unusual’
(Feb 1, 2013) Justice William O’Neill, who took office on Jan. 2, last week disagreed with the rest of the court’s judges to oppose the execution of a man accused of the 1995 murder of a 10-year-old girl. In his strong dissent, O’Neill called capital punishment “inherently cruel and unusual” and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Read more here
Death penalty foes introduce measure in Olympia
(Jan 29, 2013) Republican and Democratic lawmakers against the death penalty have introduced a measure eliminating it. But they fully acknowledge that the bill won’t go anywhere this year in Olympia. Read more here
Prosecutor: Death penalty system unfair to victims
(Jan 27, 2013) Platte County prosecutor Eric Zahnd said he accepted offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence to spare the family of the continued nightmare of a capital murder trial. He said the state’s death penalty process “puts victims’ families in a tragic dilemma.” Read more here
The State With The Most Death Row Exonerations Wants To Speed Up Executions
(Jan 24, 2013) Rep. Gaetz’s views on the death penalty carry extra weight, given that he chairs the Criminal Justice Subcommittee in the Florida House of Representatives. Read more here
The Price of the Death Penalty: Bill Proposes New Study
(Jan 24, 2013) KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Capital punishment is up for debate again in the Missouri legislature, as a new proposal would require the state auditor study the cost of a death penalty case versus a life imprisonment. Read more here
Nebraska Senator Chambers Pushes for Death Penalty Repeal
(Jan 23, 2013) A state lawmaker who fought for years to abolish the death penalty in Nebraska is trying again. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha introduced a repeal measure on Wednesday, the final day for lawmakers to submit bills. Read more here
Harvey man on death row should get new trial due to drug use, attorneys allege
(Jan 22, 2013) . Isaiah Doyle, 30, doesn’t deny he killed Hwa Lee on Aug. 4, 2005, but his attorneys are resurrecting claims that his extensive drug use exacerbated mental illness — claims the jury rejected in convicting him and recommending the death penalty.
Read more here
Mississippi Supreme Court Death Penalty
(Jan 21, 2013) The Mississippi Supreme Court has asked a Copiah County judge to clarify his ruling that death row inmate Ricky Case is mentally competent. The justices say it appears the trial judge adopted findings submitted by prosecutors. The justices say they want the judge to put the findings into his own words. Read more here
Colorado Considers the Future of the Death Penalty
(Jan 21, 2013) Two competing bills on the future of the death penalty in Colorado may be taken up by the state Legislature this session. Claire Levy, from Boulder County, wants to make the maximum sentence in Colorado life in prison without parole. Levy says while there are objections to the death penalty on moral grounds, the lengthy appeals process makes it difficult for the victims’ families to get any real closure. Read more here
Small pool of PA attorneys qualified to handle death-penalty cases
(Jan 21, 2013) When Blair County President Judge Jolene G. Kopriva appointed attorneys to represent Aaron Wilson Dishong on what likely would be a capital case, she was surprised to learn there were only two Blair County attorneys outside the Public Defender’s Office who were qualified to try a death penalty case. Read more here
Opinion, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Moratorium needed on death penalty in Pa.
(Jan 17, 2013) There is an awful possibility that Pennsylvania could be executing multiple people in the near future because several death row inmates are nearing the end of their appeals process. Read more here
Arkansas Governor Beebe: Would sign death-penalty repeal
(Jan 16, 2013) Gov. Mike Beebe says he would sign a bill to repeal the death penalty in Arkansas if the legislature sent it to him. Beebe said he doesn’t expect to see such a bill. He has signed four death warrants after doing extensive research — including reading trial transcripts — on each case, but because of additional appeals, none was carried out. Read more here
Va. executes convicted killer who sought death penalty
(Jan 16, 2013) A convicted murderer who killed two fellow inmates while serving a life sentence and vowed to keep on killing unless he was put to death was executed in Virginia. Robert Gleason Jr., 42, originally of Lowell, Mass., was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. Read more here
Accused in Ogden, UT challenges legality of death penalty
(Jan 15, 2013) The attorney for an accused Ogden cop-killer has filed a motion challenging the legality of the death penalty. In the motion filed in 2nd District Court, Matthew David Stewart’s attorney Randall Richards argues that the death penalty violates Stewart’s due process rights under the U.S. and Utah constitutions. Read more here
Opinion, Baltimore Sun: Shouldn’t we strive for a more enlightened justice system than China?
(Jan 14, 2013) As a 21-year resident of central Baltimore, let me first thank the major for his service and for helping to keep me and my family safe. On the deterrent value of the death penalty, or lack thereof, the National Research Council last year concluded that all studies of capital punishment contain fundamental flaws that make them “uninformative as a basis for policy consideration.” Read more here
Supreme Court Decision a Blow for Anti-Death Penalty Advocates
(Jan 13, 2013) In a rare unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court narrowed another avenue of appeals for death row inmates, ruling that federal judges cannot indefinitely delay appeals of state criminal convictions in the hope that an incompetent defendant might eventually become competent enough to help his or her lawyer out with the appeals process. Read more here
Illinois, 10 Years After Repeal
(Jan 11, 2013) On January 11, 2003, the world watched as Illinois Governor George Ryan, days before leaving office, granted clemencies to all 163 men and women on death row in his state, reducing their sentences to life without parole. The previous day he had pardoned four death row prisoners all of whom had been tortured into giving false confessions. Read more here
Opinion, Denver Post: Abolish death penalty in Colorado
(Jan 9, 2013) It appears that the Colorado legislature is finally poised to give serious consideration to ending the barbaric, money-sucking relic of bygone years known as the death penalty. Read more here
Maryland Repeal Could Be Within One Vote
(Jan 8, 2013) With Maryland lawmakers set to reconvene Wednesday, the powerful Senate president has offered Gov. Martin O’Malley an unusual bargain on legislation to repeal the death penalty, which has remained bottled up in a committee for years. Read more here
Lawyers Stumble, and Clients Take Fall (and Die)
(Jan 7, 2013) Twice in recent years, the Supreme Court rebuked the federal appeals court in Atlanta for its rigid attitude toward filing deadlines in capital cases. A few days after Christmas, a divided three-judge panel of the court ruled that Ronald B. Smith, a death row inmate in Alabama, could not pursue a challenge to his conviction and sentence because he had not “properly filed” a document by a certain deadline. Read more here
Opinion, Loveland Reporter-Herald: Colorado must rethink death penalty
(Jan 7, 2013) Since 1973, 142 people have been released from death row in the United States because of evidence suggesting they were not guilty. That alone should stand as an argument against the death penalty. It is without question that Americans have been executed for crimes of which they were not guilty. Read more here.
Miami legislator files bill to end death penalty
(Jan 4, 2013) Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, has filed a bill that would end the death penalty in Florida, saying there are better and more cost effective ways to prevent crime. Read more here.
Tennessee searches for new death penalty drug
(Jan 3, 2013) The state’s entire stock of a key lethal injection drug has been confiscated by the federal government amid questions about whether it was legally obtained and the state hasn’t yet figured out how — or when — it plans to execute inmates in the future. Read more here.
Rodney Berget’s Death Sentence Overturned By South Dakota Supreme Court
(Jan 3, 2013) In an opinion released Thursday, the justices said Rodney Berget, 50, must get a new sentencing hearing because the circuit judge who sentenced him to die improperly considered a statement Berget made to a psychiatrist. Read more here.
Push To Abolish Kentucky Death Penalty
(Jan 2, 2013) Democratic state Rep. Carl Rollins of Midway drafted a measure that would make Kentucky’s stiffest sentence life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Rollins bill calls for the term “capital punishment” to be stricken altogether from state law. Read more here
Maryland Senate Will Hold Vote On Death Penalty Repeal
(Jan 2, 2013) Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Wednesday that he will make sure that legislation to repeal Maryland’s death penalty gets a vote in his chamber if the governor lines up enough support for approval. Read more here
Oregon Death Penalty Repeal Urged
(Dec 26, 2012) The Urban League of Portland is advocating for the replacement of the death penalty with life without parole. The civil rights and public service organization recently joined with Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty to support death penalty repeal efforts in Oregon. Read more here
Florida Led Nation In Death Sentences In 2012
(Dec 25, 2012) A report by a national nonprofit group that studies the death penalty found that Florida remains among the most active states in using it and put more defendants on death row in 2012 than any other state. Read more here
Maryland Top Court To Hear Challenge To Death Penalty
(Dec 25, 2012) Maryland’s highest court is scheduled to hear a challenge to the state’s death penalty law next week, just weeks before the state legislature is expected to weigh a ban on capital punishment. Read more here
Army Seeks Death Penalty In Afghanistan Massacre
(Dec 19, 2012) The United States Army will seek the death penalty against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 16 civilians in Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday. Read more here
Connecticut Killer Gets Federal Death Sentence
(Dec 18, 2012) For the first time in Connecticut’s federal court history, a judge sentenced a defendant to death for the brutal baseball-bat beatings of three duct-taped victims in a Bridgeport apartment house. Read more here
Opinion, Mason City Globe Gazette: Iowa Does Not Need Death Penalty
(Dec 17, 2012) Calls to renew capital punishment come easy in the wake of horrible crimes such as the likely murders of the two young cousins whose bodies were recently recovered. In the heat of emotion, we, too, can imagine wanting to kill anyone who could do such a horrible thing as to murder two small girls. That’s why laws should be made not in the heat of emotion, but in the light of logic and facts. Read more here
Connecticut Death Penalty Trial Resumes
(Dec 16, 2012) A trial is scheduled to resume in the case of five Connecticut death row inmates who claim their prosecutions were fraught with racial and geographical biases. The trial has been held on and off for the past three months. Read more here
Judge Finds Racial Bias In Three More NC Death Penalty Cases
(Dec 13, 2012) A North Carolina judge on Thursday commuted the sentences of three death row inmates to life in prison after finding that race played a factor in jury selection for their cases. Read more here
Kentucky DP Opponents Appeal To Governor
(Dec 11, 2012) Activists have delivered more than 1,500 postcards to Gov. Steve Beshear asking that he sign no more death warrants and that he work to abolish the death penalty. Read more here
Damon Thibodeaux Exonerated, Released From Louisiana Death Row
(Dec 9, 2012) Damon Thibodeaux, 38, was convicted in 1996 of the rape and murder of his 14-year-old step-cousin near New Orleans. After 16 years in prison, 15 of them on Louisiana’s death row, Thibodeaux was finally freed when DNA evidence proved he was not the killer. Read more here
Opinion, The Oregonian: Voters need a public debate about the death penalty in Oregon
(Dec 8, 2012) It is wonderful to see that district attorneys Joshua Marquis and Steven Atchison acknowledge that Oregonians should vote on whether we should continue to support a death penalty (“The death penalty conversation isn’t new for Oregon,” Commentary, Dec. 3). Those of us opposed to the death penalty have been seeking that debate for some time now. Read more here
Opinion, San Francisco Chronicle: Endgame for death penalty in California
(Dec 8, 2012) The election-night headlines didn’t seem cheerful for those dedicated to ending capital punishment in California. A closer reading of both the 2012 election in California and of the current circumstances of the death penalty suggests that the endgame for capital punishment in the Golden State is well under way. Read more here
Opinion, New York Times: ‘Clear Errors’ About the Death Penalty
(Dec 7, 2012) When the United States Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, it said that the penalty could never be mandatory. Even if a jury finds a defendant guilty of a brutal murder, it still must weigh evidence about how to sentence him. Aggravating evidence concerns why a jury should impose a death sentence. Mitigating, or moderating, evidence concerns why it should not. That is the law of the land. But it is not the law of the Kentucky Supreme Court. Read more here
Sentence of One of Alabama’s Longest Serving Death Row Inmates Reduced After 30 Years
On December 6, Bobby Tarver, who had spent 30 years on Alabama‘s death row, finally had his death sentence reduced to life without parole by a state judge because of his intellectual disability. Tarver was Mobile County’s longest-serving death row inmate, having been convicted in 1982 of murdering a taxi cab driver. Read more
Richard Stokley Executed for Rape and Murder of Two Teenagers; Partner-in-Crime Out Free
(12-5-2012) Richard Stokley was executed today at the state prison in Florence, more than 21 years after he and an accomplice kidnapped, raped, and murdered two 13-year-old girls in Cochise County. His accomplice in those crimes, Randy Brazeal, is currently a free man. Read more here
Former Death Row Inmate Imprisoned for 30 Years in Texas With No Conviction
(11-29-2012) A former death row inmate with intellectual disabilities has been held in the Texas prison system for over 30 years despite having no valid conviction. Jerry Hartfield, an illiterate man with an IQ of 51, had his capital conviction overturned in 1980 because the jury at his trial had been improperly selected. Read more here
Woman on Texas death row wins new trial in 1994 slaying of infant
(12-5-2012) Cathy Lynn Henderson won a new trial Wednesday from a divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for the slaying of a 3-month-old suburban Austin boy she was baby-sitting 18 years ago. Read more here
Miss. Supreme Court hears new challenge to death sentence from 2008 slaying
(12-5-2012) The attorney for a death row inmate told the Mississippi Supreme Court on Wednesday that prosecutors failed to prove Bobby Batiste robbed his victim, a key element required for an Oktibbeha County jury to convict him of capital murder. Read more here
